Thursday, 21 November 2013

With Dr Who back on the TV this weekend it’s a good excuse
to be all timey wimey. Cycling requires travel in both space and time after all.
There are two elements to every journey, the distance and the time it takes. In
cycle racing the one who gets there quickest is usually the winner. People
generally want an easy life and will happily choose to cycle if it is as safe
and convenient as driving, because in most towns and cities cycling is already
quicker and more enjoyable.

So what has this got to do with infrastructure? Well, the
battle over ‘space for cycling’ is well understood. It’s pretty clear that
squeezing onto a narrow road or busy junction with fast moving cars and HGVs is
unappealing to many people. Physical separation by getting rid of excessive
traffic in town centres and residential streets, or by creating cycle tracks
and crossing facilities where traffic speeds and volumes can’t be addressed, is
the solution.

However physical segregation presently comes at a price when cyclists cross the path of other traffic.
Many cyclists won’t use existing cycle tracks because they involve lots of
stopping and starting.There is an
advantage in staying on the carriageway where you can keep moving. The penalty
for increased separation is decreased convenience, additional effort to stop
and start, and therfore additional journey time through delays at junctions. It doesn’t
have to be that way, but to take full advantage of more space for cycling we
also have to win more time for cycling. Dedicated time is one of the ways in
which cyclists and pedestrians can be physically separated from vehicles
turning across their path.

It only takes cyclists and pedestrians 5-10 seconds to cross
a road or junction from a standing start. Most people no matter how young or old can lap the Manchester Velodrome
in less than 30 seconds, but if you’re good, you can do it in half that
time.You’d think that traffic signals
would be set to cater for the average, rather than the Olympian, to pass
through a junction without other traffic bearing down on
them. However time for motor traffic is regarded as sacrosanct by engineers
keen to avoid (or not exacerbate) delay to drivers so if you’re a pedestrian or
cyclist, you have to be quick off the mark.

Similarly delay while waiting to cross a junction is
invariably passed to the pedestrian and cyclist because you can of course
‘stack’ hundreds of pedestrians and cyclists in to far less space than is taken
by a few queuing cars, and then force them to sprint across the road. As well
as creating chaotic and unpleasant conditions for pedestrians (and ideal
conditions for city pick pockets), these delays are especially disproportionate
given that people are usually only walking and cycling short distances and
could easily spend half of their journey time standing still watching moving
traffic. Living Streets are highlighting this in their current #timetocross
campaign because for an increasing elderly population, running across the road
in a crowd of people is impossible as well as unpleasant, but all that could be resolved with just 3 more seconds for pedestrians at crossings. For cyclists, a 3 second head start would be enough to avoid many 'left hook' collisions where a vehicle turns left into cyclists going straight on at traffic lights.

Unfortunately, even relatively minor junctions such as supermarket exits usually feature a ‘pedestrian
refuge’. That tiny, cramped island fortress of guardrail in the middle of every
busy junction. Is it really a safety feature? Or is it there to enable traffic
to have the maximum time at the junction, while pedestrians and cyclists scurry
across in the gaps between. The
‘staggered’ refuge that requires a sharp turn and an unpleasant rest in the
middle of the road is entirely to serve ‘capacity’ requirements of motor
traffic and is invariably unsuitable for conversion to a toucan crossing, which
is one of the only legal options for creating segregated cycle crossings in the
UK. However, making this into a straight across that is convenient for cyclists
and pedestrians is often refused by traffic engineers and network managers because
it would require additional crossing time and delay motor vehicles. If we are
to have more segregated cycle infrastructure in the UK, we have to have direct
crossings, with separate flows of cycles and pedestrians able to cross a
carriageway in one single movement. Current UK legislation doesn’t even cover
how to sign and mark these parallel crossings hence the DfT is unable to
publish design guidance!

The target for the number of stops per kilometre at
junctions on a main cycle route in the Netherlands is zero. Of course in a big
city this target is never achieved, but it is an indication of the absolute
priority given to pedestrians and cyclists in the design principles and in transport policy.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s British engineers did at least give
some thought to this by providing bridges and subways for pedestrians in New Towns and in ring road systems, just
that they got it the wrong way round. The cars should have been made to go up
and down and the pedestrians and cyclists stay at ground level. Or at least
there should have been a halfway house compromise, to avoid the damp, dark, indirect,
crime ridden subways and bridges that
have given the concept of grade separation a bad name among pedestrians and
cyclists.

There really is no excuse for the paucity of time allocated
to non-motorised users. It is possible to design traffic lights that offer a
‘green wave’ to cyclists in just the same way that we currently do with SCOOT for
motor vehicles. A detection loop on a
cycle track can trigger the lights to change on the approach to a junction so
that when the cyclist gets there they have a green light amd don’t lose
momentum, and this can have a push-button back up system in case the loop doesnt detect that snazzy carbon fibre bike of yours.

It is possible to design side-road , junctions with ‘tight’
geometry – angular kerbs, speed tables and narrow entrances, so that cyclists
and pedestrians can be given priority and turning vehicles have to wait until they can safely
manoeuvre. It is possible to continue the footway and cycle track over a side
road entrance and make vehicles give way and bump up and down to cross it,
instead of always making pedestrians and cyclists do the crossing no matter how
minor the junction.

It is possible to
give right-turning cyclists a safe space to wait on the nearside and a dedicated time to cross,
avoiding the need to cross moving traffic lanes and wait in the middle of the
road.

All of these things are possible, but crucially they require
time.

There is still a possibility to get this right in new road schemes.
For existing junctions in busy towns and cities however, cyclists and
pedestrians need to engage in the Time War to ensure that safe space for
cycling also means a similar level of priority and convenience for cyclists as
is offered to motor traffic. That takes political courage and a recognition that its time to treat cycling and walking as legitimate modes of transport that can achieve the objective of efficiently moving people (not just vehicles) around congested towns and cities.

About Me

I'm a transport consultant with Phil Jones Associates. I work on infrastructure, policy advice, strategies and encouragement initiatives that help increase cycling. I also provide advice on these issues to British Cycling, working alongside Chris Boardman and the British Cycling campaigns team.